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July 26, 2005: Air base plans get the final approval votes Sept. 28, 2004: Tri-Town won’t hire consultant to review plan Sept. 24, 2004 The Patriot Ledger Home Page
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Base plan payout may come up short$7 million for three towns is 40 percent less than expected
The proposed South Weymouth Naval Air Station redevelopment project would be a moneymaker for the three towns where the base is located, but to a lesser degree than developers estimate, Weymouth officials say. Weymouth’s projection of additional tax revenue - about $7 million after paying for services - is almost 40 percent smaller than numbers Lennar Partners, the base’s master developer, calculated. Still, Mayor David Madden said he is pleased the project would be “revenue positive” and stressed that the town analysis was “a conservative look.” Weymouth Chief Financial Officer James Wilson completed the analysis and presented it to the town council’s budget management committee on Thursday. In September, Lennar unveiled its plan for the 1,405-acre property, a former naval air base that closed military operations in 1997. It proposes building 2,855 houses and condos and creating 2,533 jobs. It also estimated generating $11.1 million in additional revenue for the towns once the project is built out in 2017. David Hall, a Lennar vice president, said he thinks there will be more money than what Weymouth projects, but is happy that it came out on the plus side. “We consider those numbers to be a good starting point, generally conservative, and we think the number can be substantially higher,” he said.
Weymouth’s analysis is just one of a few that will be hitting the public view next week. A review by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the Old Colony Planning Council and another from realty consultant Donohoe & Associates are due out at the beginning of next week. “I think we would break down the findings of these reputable groups and further refine our numbers and advance the thinking,” Hall said. For the Weymouth analysis, Wilson compared Lennar’s projections for values of residences and commercial space to similar Weymouth projects, including the Avalon apartment complex and the Weymouth Woods corporate center. He then formulated a hypothetical budget for the air base, including how much it would cost to educate students, plow the streets, respond to a fire and so on. The final result, revenue less expenses, yielded Wilson’s conclusion of $7 million annually by 2017 for Weymouth, Rockland and Abington. Officials said some of the revenue estimates were conservative. For example, the report says a 900-square-foot apartment would on average be assessed at less than $60,000, meaning less money for the towns. And for retail, the report used the South Weymouth strip mall that contains Colonial Bowl and John’s Liquors as a comparison. And like Lennar’s estimates, the town’s figures don’t take inflation into account, which will likely boost revenue to Weymouth, Abington and Rockland. “This is of such value to the council because I finally feel comfortable that I can take a look at numbers and make comparisons,” Weymouth Town Councilor-at-large Sue Kay said. Several councilors noted the difference between Lennar’s and the town’s projections, saying they were significant. However, they all added that the numbers are just predictions on how the money would flow. “Projections are just educated guesses,” Councilor-at-large Colin McPherson said. “There are any number of things that could turn out different in the future.” Mark Fontecchio may be reached by clicking here.
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MAPS: A before and after look
“I have more confidence in our number than theirs, and $7 million is still a considerable amount of money,” he said.
